


Happy Birthday, Dil!

by transdimensional_void



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: Fluff, Humor, M/M, Mpreg
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-02
Updated: 2014-11-02
Packaged: 2018-03-25 03:28:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,962
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3794956
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/transdimensional_void/pseuds/transdimensional_void
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Every hero has an origin story. This is Dil Howlter's.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Happy Birthday, Dil!

It was late March when Phil began to notice there was something different about Dan. He’d been quiet lately, but that was nothing new. Phil was quite used to Dan’s brooding phases that usually ended up with him declaring he’d reached a new epiphany about life’s fleeting nature and the necessity of carpe-ing the diem.

 

But this was different. Dan didn’t seem worried, or fearful, or contemplative – this was something softer. He was a little moody, yes, but it seemed as though multiple times a day, Phil would catch him staring out the window with a sort of dreamy smile on his face.

It was early April by the time Phil decided that Dan was definitely hiding something from him. 

They had been to the shops that afternoon, and Dan kept getting distracted by every little thing. He’d point at a display for little girls’ dresses in a window and exclaim about how cute they were. Or he’d see a harried-looking young mother chasing a recalcitrant toddler down the toy aisle and point…and sigh.

When they finally got home early that evening, Dan started off toward the kitchen to make them both a cup of hot cocoa, but Phil stopped him with a hand on his arm.

“What is it, Phil?” Dan asked, turning toward his flatmate with a surprised look.

“I think we need to talk,” Phil replied, raising his eyebrows as if to suggest that Dan knew exactly what he was talking about.

To Phil’s astonishment, this made Dan blush, lower his eyes, and smile a small, secretive smile to himself.

“I guess we do,” he said, then looked up into Phil’s eyes at last. “Maybe you should sit down.”

Phil didn’t ask what he meant by that but instead simply allowed himself to be led up to the lounge and ushered onto the couch, his heartbeat hammering in his ears the entire time.

“Ahem,” Dan cleared his throat when his best friend and lover was settled on the couch and regarding him expectantly. He himself was still standing, his fingers fidgeting in his hair and his feet not quite able to stay in one spot. “I, er, I didn’t want to tell you anything until I was sure. It just… well, it didn’t really seem possible that– What I mean is, I thought at first that maybe I was just dreaming all of this, so I wanted to be sure it was real before I got your hopes up–”

“Just spit it out already!” Phil cut him off, thinking that if Dan put this off any longer he was going to explode from anticipation.

Dan bit his lip, gave his boyfriend an apologetic smile, and then, at last, said,

“I’m pregnant.”

There was a rushing sound in Phil’s ears, like the whole ocean was pouring through his brain, and truth be told, he rather felt like someone who had been dragged out to sea in a giant wave and was being spun and swirled and rolled about in the open ocean. All he could do for several seconds was just stare at the other man, mouth slightly agape and eyes gone out of focus.

Dan was standing there, his smile half gone, his coffee-colored eyes darting across Phil’s face, looking for signs of his reaction.

Then all of a sudden something clicked in Phil’s brain, and his lips split into a grin so wide it made his cheeks ache.

He was going to be a father.

All at once, he was on his feet, and his arms were going around Dan and pulling him in close against his chest, and they were both sobbing, and laughing, and Phil was pretty sure it was the best moment of his life so far.

*****************************

Things grew more difficult in May and June. Dan’s mood swings had grown so extreme that Phil thought they might give him whiplash. He’d had to give up sushi and coffee – raw fish and caffeine both being deemed dangerous for the baby – and that had done nothing to improve his moods. And on top of it all, they had gotten into a huge fight that was yet to be resolved.

When Phil had gone on the doctor’s visit with Dan that first time in late April, Dr. Patel had told them at the end of the examination that on the next visit she should be able to tell them the sex of the baby.

“Mr. Howell is just finishing the first trimester,” she explained. “I think it will be best if you schedule another visit about a month from now. When we do the ultrasound, we will probably be able to tell whether your baby is a boy or a girl.”

“That’s wonderful!” Dan had said.

“I don’t want to know,” Phil had blurted out at the same time. They’d exchanged a glance before looking back at the doctor, who was trying her best to hide a smile.

“I’ll let you two discuss it, and you can tell me your decision next time,” was all she’d said.

The cab ride home had been very quiet, as neither of them felt it appropriate to have such a private conversation in front of a random stranger. The minute they were alone in their flat again, though, it was like all hell had broken loose. Dan had rounded on Phil at the door, tears glistening at the corners of his eyes.

“Why did you say that?” he demanded.

“Say what?” Phil was genuinely confused. Why was Dan crying all of a sudden?

“You  _know_  what you said! You said you didn’t want to know our baby’s sex!” His tone made it clear that this was an accusation, but Phil was damned if he knew what he’d done that was so wrong.

“I just think it would be nicer for it to be a surprise,” he said, trying to keep his own tone calm and neutral.

“A surprise? A  _surprise_? But how are we supposed to pick out a name? What if it’s  _twins_ –?”

“Dan, we just had an ultrasound, and we know it’s not tw–”

“Do  _not_  interrupt me! What am I supposed to tell my mum when she asks me what type of presents to buy?”

“Just tell her to buy whatever she wants. It’s a baby. It won’t care whether it’s wearing a dress or not,” Phil suggested, trying to keep his voice from making it clear just how unreasonable he thought his boyfriend was being.

Dan just stared at him, tears rolling down his cheeks, before whirling around and stomping off up the stairs to his bedroom, where he slammed the door hard enough to make the whole flat tremble.

“It’s just the hormones,” Phil had muttered to himself. “It’s just the hormones.” He’d debated for a few minutes whether he should go upstairs and try to apologize or something, but eventually he’d decided that Dan just needed some time to cool down.

And this seemed to be the case, for just a couple of hours later Phil heard the sounds of clinking and opening and closing cabinet doors from the kitchen. When he went to investigate, he found Dan dressed in an apron and humming softly to himself as he mixed together the ingredients for pancake batter.

“Oh, Phil, there you are!” he had said, looking up from his mixing bowl. “Could you just hand me the milk from the fridge?”

So Phil had gotten him the milk, and they’d had some delicious, heart-shaped pancakes, and Phil was so relieved that he had decided not to bring up the baby’s sex again.

This proved to be a mistake. Apparently Dan had decided it was best to not bring up the topic again either, so by the morning of their next doctor’s visit, nothing had been decided. This dawned on them simultaneously as they sat at the breakfast table, Dan casting soulful glances at Phil’s mug of coffee while slowly sipping his own glass of orange juice. 

“I called to confirm our appointment yesterday,” Dan had said. “We should probably try to leave by quarter to ten. The receptionist said they had a busy schedule today, so we should make sure to arrive on time if we want to fit in an ultrasound.”

That’s when their eyes had met, and they’d both remembered that Dr. Patel would be asking if they wanted to know whether the baby was a boy or a girl. Dan had looked away first.

“I’m going to ask her… If she says she can tell,” he had said, not quite managing to keep from sounding petulant.

Phil had just sighed. He really had wanted to keep it a surprise, but it didn’t seem like Dan was budging on this. Well, if it was so important to him, Phil would just give in, and that would be that. He tried his best not to feel resentful about it. At least, he told himself, it was resolved now, and they could move on.

Except that it wasn’t resolved. Not at all. During the ultrasound, the baby had been turned at the wrong angle, and the doctor had told them that they’d just have to wait until next time to find out. Phil felt a sudden sense of relief at her words, followed immediately by a wave of guilt when he saw Dan’s disappointed expression. It really  _was_ important to him.

He didn’t say anything at first, after they’d gotten home. He knew he wanted to apologize and tell Dan that he didn’t mind knowing ahead of time, but there was a nagging, little part of him that kept telling him this was a lie. He did mind. Why shouldn’t he have a say in this decision? Why should he just have to give in, without even having a reasonable discussion about it?

It took him a couple of hours to tell that nagging, little voice to shut it. He went to look for Dan in the lounge where he’d last heard him yelling excitedly about a Formula 1 race on television. But Dan wasn’t there. He checked the kitchen, and the bathroom, and finally found him when he passed by Dan’s partially-ajar bedroom door and caught sight of him standing in the middle of the room.

He was on the verge of walking in when he heard Dan’s voice and paused. His boyfriend stood in the center of his bedroom, hands resting on either side of the small bump in his abdomen.

“Hey, there,” Dan was saying, his voice so soft that Phil had to lean through the doorway to hear him. “I guess you’re a bit shy. That’s all right, though, little one. I hope you know that I don’t care whether you’re a boy or a girl or a dog or an alien. Your dad and I will love you all the same.”

A warm, melting feeling spread through Phil’s chest, and without a word, he walked straight up to Dan, put his arms around him from behind and squeezed him tight.

“Yes, we will,” he murmured.

****************************************

By the beginning of October, Dan’s abdomen had swollen to the size of a football and seemed to grow larger by the day. He’d had to have elastic sewn into the waistband of all his skinny jeans. In the end, they’d had a long discussion about it and decided that they could both wait to learn the baby’s sex until the delivery. 

Dan occasionally made jokes about how huge he felt, but overall he’d settled into a happy, contented glow. In September, after their radio show hours had been dramatically reduced, they had finally had time to start seriously shopping for the baby’s nursery. There had been another rather heated debate then about who would be giving up his bedroom to the baby, and it had ultimately been decided by a hotly-contested MarioKart tournament. To his utter shock, Phil had been the winner, and it was Dan who had to move out of his room.

They’d decided on green as the main color, and with help from friends and both of their families, the nursery was ready for the new arrival by the first weekend in October. Dan’s due date was October 30, a fact which had earned them endless teasing from the aforementioned family and friends. More than one person had thought it a clever joke to send them a link to that [Jeremih song](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vYMxOzxKYYo). 

Neither of them slept well for most of the month of October. Dan was having difficulty finding a comfortable sleeping position, with the giant protuberance on his front, not to mention the necessity of getting up to go to the toilet several times a night. He’d discovered that it was hard to hold it when you had a full-sized baby sitting on your bladder. Now that Dan had moved into Phil’s room, all of his boyfriend’s nighttime restlessness was keeping Phil awake too. And on top of all that, they were both practically bursting with excitement. Dr. Patel had warned them that the baby could come at any time, and they lived in constant anticipation.

But October 30th came and went, and still the baby showed no sign that it was ready to make its appearance.

On November 1st, Phil rang up the doctor, put her on speaker phone so that Dan could hear too, and asked if she thought something was wrong.

“I really don’t believe so, Mr. Lester,” she assured him. “Both Mr. Howell and the baby seemed perfectly fine when you were here two days ago. Due dates tend to be a little imprecise. We just have to trust that the baby knows the right time. Let’s give it another day or two, and if the baby still hasn’t come, we’ll induce.”

They agreed that this sounded like a reasonable plan, but Phil could still see worry in Dan’s eyes after they had hung up.

“She said you both seemed fine during the last visit,” he tried to reassure him, placing his left hand over his boyfriend’s right and giving it a little squeeze. “She said this is completely normal.”

“I know, I know,” Dan replied, shaking his head as though the movement could shake off his feelings of unease as well. “I guess I’m just ready to stop feeling like an overfilled water balloon. Oof!” He clutched his side and made a pained expression.

“What is it?” Phil’s brain froze in sudden alarm. “Is it a contraction? Is something wrong?”

Dan just shook his head, and gave him a teeth-clenched smile.

“No, no. The little tyke is just having its way with my spleen again. Here,” and he reached for Phil’s hand and guided it to the side he had been clutching. Sure enough, Phil could feel a sort of fluttering thud that he had come to recognize as the baby kicking. He knew that sometimes the kicking was painful for Dan, but it still filled him with a sense of wonder every time he felt it. There was actually a small human in there, inside his boyfriend, that would very shortly be outside and in his arms.

It suddenly struck Phil that these extra days were actually sort of a gift. This was their last chance to enjoy their life together as just the two of them, just Dan and Phil.

“Wanna order a pizza and binge on Netflix?” he asked, and Dan grinned.

“I knew there was a reason I loved you.”

****************************************

It happened the next morning. It was just after ten, a cloudy Sunday morning, and they were both enjoying a lie-in after another sleepless night.

“Go get me breakfast,” Dan had muttered to the still half-asleep Phil.

“No, you get it,” Phil had grumbled, snuggling deeper under the covers.

“Phi-il,” Dan had started, but the name turned into a sort of groan halfway. “Unnnngh,” he said.

Phil sat up straight, suddenly fully awake.

“What is it? Are you hurt? Are you okay?”

“Unnnnngggghhhhhh,” Dan groaned, and Phil could see that his face was all scrunched up, and he was curled up and clutching his middle. A few beads of sweat popped out at his hairline. Then he gave a small gasp and suddenly relaxed. His eyes sprang open and locked onto Phil’s.

“I think…” His expression of pain turned into a grin. “I think that was a contraction!”

Phil was out of bed at once and running for the suitcase that sat, already packed, by the bedroom door. All their carefully-laid plans had fallen out of his head. He had the suitcase open and was tossing in both their iPhone chargers before Dan’s voice stopped him.

“Phil, you’re supposed to call the doctor first, while I finish the packing.” He was standing by the bed, one hand resting on his bulging middle and the other out-flung in a gesture of exasperation.

“No, no. You just stay in bed. What if another contraction comes? What if your water breaks? Maybe you should–”

“Phil, I’m fine. The doctor said that usually the contractions are really far apart at first. Just calm down and call the doctor like we planned.”

Phil knew he was right. He stopped, letting the small, stuffed totoro he had been about to pack fall from his fingers into the suitcase, and took a deep breath to try to steady his nerves. He couldn’t believe it was finally happening. Of course once he got Dr. Patel on the line, she told him they should time the contractions and call her again when they were thirty minutes apart. Phil wanted to ask her if she was mental, expecting them to just sit quietly at home watching the clock at a moment like this, but instead he just thanked her and hung up the phone.

A couple of hours later, after much nervous fidgeting and pacing and Dan telling him to just sit down already before he gave him a heart attack, it was time to call the doctor again.

“They’re thirty minutes apart now. Can we go to the hospital already?”

“All right, yes. I’ll meet you there,” she said.

It was the longest taxi ride of Phil’s life, clutching the handle of the suitcase in one hand, and Dan’s clammy hand in his other. The hospital was only fifteen minutes away by car, but it felt like fifteen years before they finally pulled up at the entrance. They had phoned ahead, of course, so a nurse was waiting there with a wheelchair for Dan, who collapsed into it with a grateful expression. Another contraction had overtaken him just a minute before they pulled up. It had only been about twenty minutes since the last one.

As they walked up the short pavement to the hospital doors, Phil realized that his knees had gone wobbly. He wished they’d brought a wheelchair for him too.

There was some paper work for him to fill out at the front desk, and so he was stuck there, writing in what had to be the worst handwriting of his life, while the nurse wheeled Dan off down a hallway and disappeared around a corner. He bit his lower lip and wrote faster, not believing that he was being forced to let his boyfriend out of his sight at a time like this.

“And if you’ll just sign here, Mr. Lester,” the receptionist was saying, holding out yet another clipboard to him that he began mindlessly scribbling on. “I suppose the baby will be taking your name,” she said, offering him a knowing smile, “or are you planning to hyphenate?”

Phil just blinked at her. Was she really trying to make small talk with him?  _Now?_

“Uh..hmm,” he made some non-committal noises in the back of his throat as he dashed off the last of the necessary signatures. Then he dropped the pen, spun on his heel, and began sprinting down the hallway before pulling up short as it struck him that he didn’t know which room they’d put Dan in. He whipped his head around, giving the receptionist a panicked look.

“Room 103!” she called, and he ignored the laughter in her voice.

He was panting by the time he reached Room 103, though it was only just around the corner. It wasn’t so much that he was out of shape but that his heart had already been beating a mile a minute before they even got to the hospital.

When he saw Dan there on the hospital bed, smiling and looking relaxed, he felt some of his tension ease. He was fine. They were fine. And there was Dr. Patel on the other side of the bed, holding Dan’s wrist and timing his heart rate. She looked up as Phil came in and gave him a reassuring smile.

“Everything seems perfectly normal, Mr. Lester. Mr. Howell here was just telling me that you had some trouble choosing a name?”

“He wants to name it Zelda, if it’s a girl,” Dan muttered, giving Phil an annoyed look that was belied by the smile on his lips.

“You wanted to name it Beyoncé!” Phil retorted, walking up to the bedside and taking hold of Dan’s other hand. The startled look on Dan’s face made him realize that he was squeezing his boyfriend’s hand far too tightly. Dan squeezed his hand back and gave him a little nod. Phil took another deep breath. Dr. Patel had said everything was fine. He needn’t be so nervous.

“That was a joke, and you know it,” Dan responded, and the nervous moment passed.

After that, things started happening rather quickly. It was only a few more minutes before Dan began experiencing his next contraction. Dr. Patel had disappeared, but then she came back, all scrubbed up and wearing protective gear like a surgeon. Dan’s contractions were getting closer and closer together and lasting for longer and longer each time, and it wasn’t long before it was Phil who was wincing from the pressure of Dan’s hand gripping his. Phil tried to murmur encouraging things to him, but what seemed to help Dan the most was uttering a long, high-volume stream of expletives at the height of each contraction.

It wasn’t long before there was less than a minute between each contraction, and then no time at all before they became continuous, and Dr. Patel was saying, “Push! Push! Push!” and Dan was screaming, “Goddammit, woman, I _am_  pushing!”

And then Dan let out the longest series of curse words Phil had ever heard come from anyone’s mouth, and Dr. Patel said, “Oh, very good, Mr. Howell!” and “Well, there you are, little one!”

And then she was holding him up in the air – their son.

“It’s a boy!” Phil cried, looking down at Dan with an expression of sheer joy. His boyfriend lay exhausted on the hospital bed, brown hair plastered to his forehead with sweat, but he managed a smile too.

Phil turned back to Dr. Patel, who was holding their child in her hands with the most horrified look on her face. The attending nurses were staring at him too, several with their mouths hanging open.

He was very small, small enough to fit in the palm of the doctor’s hand, with black hair like Phil’s and the prettiest green eyes Phil had ever seen. He was wearing a black t-shirt and black skinny jeans, and a pair of charcoal-grey bunny slippers. He sat on the edge of the doctor’s palm and waved happily at his dads. Above his head floated a small, green crystal.

“B-but…what is it?” Dr. Patel muttered.

Dan struggled up onto one elbow to get a look at their boy.

“He’s our son,” he whispered. “And his name is Dil Howlter.”

THE END

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted on tumblr as a prompt fill.


End file.
